Humble Beginnings Furniture Rehab

  I love building tables. There is something so cathartic about cutting wood and melding it together in a way that makes it beautiful. Then there are those tables where the math makes me crazy and I question the very existence of tables. Angles, lines, diameter, convergence. Not in my wheelhouse. So I did the only logical thing I could do. I walked away from the frustration and talked my husband into dealing with the math.  It all started when I came across this  blog  post I found on Pinterest. I loved the table base and I wanted it for my kitchen table. After remodeling our kitchen I wanted a slightly smaller table than the one we currently have. The blogger built a smaller table than what I wanted and so the angles had to be changed to accommodate the larger size I wanted. Hence my frustration over the math. But my wonderful hero-husband figured it all out, after several attempts and a lot of frustration of his own. We used untreated pine 2x4's we picked up from Lowe's.    

 She's not much to look at, is she? The top was a total wreck with deep scratches in the veneer and the original stain was splotchy. Plus there were red marker scribbles. But she has incredible bones and with some loving care could be quite stylish again. The first thing I needed to do was give the top a good cleaning and start sanding. After cleaning I gave the top a good inspection and discovered the veneer was quite thin, so I was going to have to be especially careful sanding so I didn't break the veneer. It took an hour to get this far. That stain was not giving up easily and the scratches were really embedded into the veneer. Between my orbital sander, the detail sander, and hand sanding I was about to give up. I could just paint the top and call it a day, but I couldn't do it. The top could be beautiful I just knew it. I just needed to be a little bit patient. Which is not my style.  Finally, the sanding was done and it only took an hour and a half for a 4'x4'

 Can all furniture be flipped? That, my friends, is a very good question and this little table will hopefully answer it.  As you can see this is a small, round, laminate side table. Two of the legs were loose but I was able to fix those up easy peasy. However, in doing so I discovered that this little table is MDF. Now, that is not necessarily a bad thing, unless it gets wet but this one is in good condition. It was sold by Target a few years ago and retailed for about $120.00. I found it at Goodwill last week.  After the repair and a good cleaning, I started priming with shellac. Now, since it's a laminate, it won't bleed, but because it's a laminate paint will slide right off, unless you use a bonding primer like shellac. I knew right from the start that I wanted to jazz this table up with a transfer I have in my stash but picking the right color was going to be the hard part. After looking at the  transfer   I thought I wanted to use Dixie Belle's  Soft Pink  but I w

  Not a bad-looking table, but nothing jumps out at you. I picked this table up at a garage sale a couple of months ago. I didn't really have a direction for it except I knew I wanted to Shou Sugi Ban the top so I got to sanding that top. Unfortunately, the top turned out to be oak veneer and not solid oak but I was determined to make it work.  I really like Shou Sugi Ban. For those who don't know what that is, Shou Sugi Ban is the Japanese technique of waterproofing wood siding. Mainly used on cedar, but woodworkers have taken to using this technique on just about any species of wood and the finish it leaves by bringing out the grain of the wood is just beautiful. I've used it on pine successfully but this was my first time using it on a veneer. I went in very light stages so as not to set the table on fire or bubble the veneer. Just look at that grain. Once the whole thing was cleaned it was time to tackle the rest of the table. I wasn't sure what the legs were made o

  This isn't a very good picture but I forgot to take one before I got started on it. A couple of years ago my neighbor gave this table to me when they were packing up to move. I needed something small for this area in my entry for shoes and it has worked well.  Now that we really don't need shoe storage in the entry anymore I decided to spruce it up a bit. I had just received a jar of Dixie Belle's limited release chalk paint in the color Juniper. It's a lovely warm shade of green just perfect for Fall.      So after giving it a good clean with a degreaser, I put on a coat of Zinnser Shellac primer, since the table has a laminate finish, Then I put on another two coats of primer because of the laminate finish. Zinnser Shellac usually grabs hold of any surface but it did not want to stick to this table. It kept pulling away from the edge banding and in hindsight, I should have just removed the edge banding but I didn't think about it at the time so I put three coats